Speed Issue in Report With 1130680 Records Returned

Question

Hi
<b>Apologies to the mods if this is in the wrong section, it contains content related to Legacy SDKs (VB6/COM), newer .NET content as well as report design issue.</b>
I'm using Windows XP SP3 with the database hosted on my machine, an [email protected] with 2GB DDR2 RAM. Neither the client's pc nor their server are as powerful as mine. (It sucks, I know.)
A report has a speed issue for the end users. The query to the database (SQLS2008) takes 30 seconds and returns 1 130 680 records. And yes, this is the amount of records that need to be returned (the report is a Sales Details report for transactions from 2008/09/01 to 2009/03/31) Running the query through SQLSMS takes the same amount of time whether I execute the statement that the report sends or put the query into a stored procedure. The relevant indices are in place.
Our application is written in VB6 and uses the CR9 unmanaged runtime. I've written a small little CR application in VS2008 to see if running the report through the CR.NET runtime would make it quicker. I built the .NET app in release mode (with optimization and no debug data) and ran the exe to do the speed tests. The times taken for the report to run:<ul>
<li>VB6 app - 3:30s
<li>.NET app - 4:30s
<li>VS2008 IDE - 2:02s
</ul>
I have run the report three times for each app using my cellphone as a stopwatch and the times are reproducible to within two seconds.
I accidentally ran the report in the VS2008 IDE and it took 2:02s to run. Thinking that the loading of the DLLs in .NET was part of the problem, I added code under a button on the form with the following code:
CrystalReportsApplication1.Properties.Settings a = new CrystalReportsApplication1.Properties.Settings();
Assembly aAss = Assembly.LoadFile(a.CR01Engine);
Assembly bAss = Assembly.LoadFile(a.CR02EntFramework);
Assembly cAss = Assembly.LoadFile(a.CR03EntInfoStore);
Assembly dAss = Assembly.LoadFile(a.CR04ReportSource);
Assembly eAss = Assembly.LoadFile(a.CR05Shared);
Assembly fAss = Assembly.LoadFile(a.CR06WinForm);
to preload the assemblies. Unfortunately it made virtually no difference to the running time of the report.
Suggestion from The specified item was not found. on [this page|Speed issue - internal processing vs views;:
8. For summaries, use conditional formulas instead of running totals when possible.
I didn't know that, but we're doing that already.
I even tried using ngen in a virtual machine for the .NET app, but the time was the same. And yes, I know that ngen is only supposed to aid startup times and that it is actually recommended to let the JIT optimize on the fly instead of ngen optimize beforehand. What really struck me was that even in a VM (using Virtual PC 2007) using 512MB of RAM and only a single core the time was the same.
My questions:<ol>
<li>I thought that VS2008 shipped with CR2008 Basic, but according the the references in my project it's CR10. Would the CR2008 runtimes improve the report speed?
<li>Why do the CR10 .NET runtimes take longer to execute than the CR9 COM runtimes?
<li>I really, really, really need the .NET runtime to outperform the COM runtimes as our purchase of CR2008 hinges on this. As you can probably guess, we're currently using ye olde CR9.2 from 2002.
<li>Why oh why do the CR10 .NET runtimes take longer to execute than the CR9 COM runtimes?
<li>The first level of grouping is a variable which changed the grouping depending on a parameter. I changed it to a field from one of the tables and the times for the apps are:
<ul>
<li>VB6 - 2:15s
<li>.NET - 2:48s
<li>CR9.2 IDE - 2:19s
<li>VS2008 IDE - 2:34s
</ul>I may or may not be able to push it out to the client like this, I don't know. Why did the VS2008 IDE take longer this time? All I did was change the grouping-on-parameter to ordinary grouping.
<li>Why oh why oh WHY do the CR10 .NET runtimes take longer to execute than the CR9 COM runtimes? Are they just thunkers to the COM DLLs?
<li>Why does the run in the VS2008 IDE (in debug mode BTW, not release mode) run quicker than both programs?
<li><i>AndrewJ.requestACookie(Flavour.Strawberry, Flavour.Alternate.ChocChip, RequestMethod.Please); // Hey, it's 5:44PM and I want to go home for the long weekend! </i>
</ol>
Thank you and have a blessed Easter!
Edited by: AndrewJ on Apr 14, 2009 10:04 AM. Changed the CPU, I was thinking of my CPU at home.

Answer 1

Please re-post if this is still an issue to the .NET Development - Crystal Reports Forum or purchase a case and have a dedicated support engineer work with you directly.
Bottom line is CR Basic is version 10.5. CR 2008 is 12.2.x.xxxx. Install CR 2008 SP 1 to get .NET support.
And you can't compare COM to .NET, it's like comparing apples and oranges, both fruits but different flavors.